


you forgave and I won't forget

by Beckingham



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Fix It Fic, Gen, Redemption, selfless brave and true
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 18:21:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beckingham/pseuds/Beckingham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Magic cannot erase what you are entirely. Or what you became. Twenty-eight years is felt, if not remembered.</p>
<p>(At first.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	you forgave and I won't forget

He goes in the wardrobe, he wakes in his father’s arms, and the only difference as far as he can tell from the world he came from to this one is the weight on his chest. But becoming real is heavier than being wood, so maybe being real again is that much more.

Magic cannot erase what you are entirely. Or what you became. Twenty-eight years is felt, if not remembered.

(At first.)

Pinocchio dreams, or thinks he does, because dreams like flesh and bones are new to him -- he is used to being hollow. There are loud birds that scream high above him and “who are you” and “where did you come from” and “where are your parents” and “is this your sister” which would be Emma, the girl he held but is too big to be held, but he dreams of carrying her.

Each day his papa shows him their new world, and he’s never alone, he knows how to get home. Each night the only thing he knows is loss, the only part of home remaining is the baby he’s promised to protect, and then that’s gone too. In his dreams he is less and less Pinocchio, he slips away like Emma does, until he’s lost to both worlds. Over the course of months, he becomes August (recalling sun warmed wood and a bit hollow) and is still Pinocchio and Emma is always Emma near or far. He’s both. Like Mary Margaret and Snow White, like Jiminy and Archie, his own curse different but no less than theirs.

He apologizes to Emma, two months after kissing two fingers and gently touching her forehead, two months after leaving even though he’s gone no where. She tells him he has nothing to be sorry for. He’s lied enough times to know one. Instead of saying that, he whispers, “I left you when you needed me, I broke my promise to papa.”

Within an hour he’s telling The Blue Fairy, Archie, his papa, Snow White and every other self of theirs about his nighttime visions. He tells them, shame faced and confused, about August, about himself but not. He tells them because Emma wants him to, and he owes her that even though he’s scared, of both turning back and how heavy his heart is; more every day.

“He’s not just remembering,” Jiminy rasps. “He’s _living it over_.”

“Two lives at once.” The Blue Fairy looks horrified.

Geppetto turns to her, snaps, “This was supposed to be his second chance, not this... this _punishment_. Are you saying that for the next twenty-eight years my boy will suffer the fate I put him through? Why him when I’m the one who deserves it?”

“Maybe this is his second chance. August, he wanted redemption, he wanted his life back, that was his wish. One he made with all his heart.”

Emma nods in agreement with her mother, “It was never about forgetting, was it?” She looks at the little boy that told her he’d remember for her if he could. Trying to keep every promise he never broke this time around.

Pinocchio looks at her, August smiles. “I can remember for you then, right? What you wanted to know? I can make it right.”

Being real weighs more than wood, and being real means being more than he was.

It was never anything less.

**Author's Note:**

> I dislike "do overs". And I liked August too much to have him lost like that.


End file.
